Underwater Photo Blog by Suzy Walker-Toye

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Category Archives: London

This weeks theme is buildings. There aren’t too many places in the world you can see buildings underwater (and none that I’ve seen in person yet) but living in London there is no scarcity of great buildings to look at and photograph. Like a tourist, I love to look up. Here are some building abstracts from central London that I took whilst doing some of my degree exercises.

Tell me in the comments what is your favourite local building (and which city is it based)?

To see all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Buildings’ here.

ps – thanks to all those who voted last week, my Intense post is in the noteworthy :) You can vote for last weeks Darkness post (#38) here.

Since I no longer have a Nikon camera it seems a shame to leave these lenses sitting in their boxes on my bookshelf, you should get in touch and give them a new home! I can meet you in London if you want to inspect the lenses before you buy them. The money will come in very handy soon when I’m skint on maternity leave ;)

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Mike and I took a trip into London for the London Diveshow at ExCel yesterday. It was lovely to catch up with a lot of our diving friends. We stopped by the BSoup stand and hung around chatting in the Underwater Photographer of the Year exhibition area. Even grabbed a shot of Alex hugging a shark at the bite-back stand as we were heading through the hall onto somewhere else (and now kicking myself we didn’t go back and get a pick of Mike & I hugging a shark – doh!)

Stopped by the Ocean Leisure stand to see Alex Tattersall and hear the disappointing news that the Olympus OMD EM5 Mark 2 isn’t going to fit into a modified Mark 1 Nauticam housing (boo!)

I think I should have worn my “Baby Onboard” badge, I think many people we knew just thought I got really fat ;) I tell you what, there is definitely a gap in the market for diving holidays for the those with new babies and young children. If both parents dive, there are no choices but to holiday separately :( Obviously most divers don’t want kids hanging around, which is understandable, I wouldn’t either, but someone needs to come up with a specialised resort. Nice warm water and reef that isn’t too pristine by the shore, good day care and the potential for boat trips for the serious diving parent(s). Maybe there is such a thing (I haven’t done any research) but nothing being advertised at the show that I could immediately see. So there we go rich VCs, get cracking and plug that niche market before its too late!

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You’ve probably seen that the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 were announced last week, I congratulate all the winners on their wonderful images. The overall winner, Essence of elephants by Greg du Toit is pictured below but what I’ve been most impressed by is the celebration of the oceans that seems to be going on across the exhibition, not only limited to the underwater category. I’m especially pleased by all the familiar names of friends & acquaintances, congratulations guys! I wrote to the NHM press department and they’ve let me use these images in this ocean special review of the exhibition. I haven’t seen the photos in person yet but as always I look forward to seeing the full exhibition before it closes early next year. Click on each of the images in this post to read the full captions associated with them.

giant with sunbeams – (Alexander Mustard / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

WINNER: Animals in their Environment:

The water bear – (Paul Sounders / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

I also liked this image – though not underwater, its often one of my fav categories…WINNER: Wildscapes

The Cauldron – (Sergey Gorshkov / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

I hope you enjoyed this watery highlight of the WPOTY Exhibition, do go and see it if you’re in London. You can see a selection of the other images at the NHM online galleries here. And congratulations again everyone – I know some of you read this blog :)

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is co-owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide. The original photographers hold the copyright to these images. Permission granted for their use in this article by Natural History Museum.

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I found out today some of my colleagues are already creating their Christmas lists! If you are super organised too you should buy one of my Nikon lenses for your Nikon-using loved ones (this includes yourself – you know you want to)!

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The weekend before last, much of London opened its doors to the public for the yearly open house. We only got around to seeing City Hall – but what a place!

After going through airport style scanners (no penknives etc) you are herded to the lifts up to see the amazing views of London from the viewing balcony which spans the whole way around the top floor.

On the way back down you can take the spiral (helical) staircase around & around all the way down to the great auditorium area. I very much enjoyed taking photos on the way down (don’t forget to look up). You need a super-wide-angle lens for this though! Here are some of my photos from the day.

We were even on London Bridge when it opened for a passing tall ship, which I’ve never seen despite living in London all my life.

I put all my random London photos here in my London Gallery. I hope to get around a bit more at next years open house london but I hope you enjoyed my take on City Hall :)